Lucid‘s new chief customer officer says the company is working on several initiatives to improve how owners are treated, after hearing what he called “candid feedback” at a gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Billy Hayes met more than 50 owners and their families at a Lucid Owners Club event over the weekend, his first since joining the company, and set out his response in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.
Owners “are the #1 priority in shaping our future,” he wrote, describing them as what makes the company special.
“Our owners are what makes Lucid so special, and are the #1 priority in shaping our future,” the executive wrote. “Our commitment is to listen, learn, and ensure their experience is fitting of the award-winning vehicles in their driveways. We are already hard at work on several initiatives in this endeavor, and we can’t wait to share more soon.”
Those owners have spent the period since the Gravity SUV reached external customers in 2025 documenting its faults publicly across social media and forums.
What he said
Hayes described the owners present as passionate about the cars and the brand, and said he and his team appreciated “hearing their candid feedback about what we can do to elevate the experience.”
The company’s commitment, he wrote, is to “listen, learn, and ensure their experience is fitting” of the vehicles in their driveways.
“We are already hard at work on several initiatives in this endeavor,” Hayes added, without naming any and promising more detail soon.
The executive said what those initiatives are, when they will arrive, or which complaints they address.
What owners have been saying
Key fob recognition failures have followed the Gravity since the first customer deliveries, with owners reporting “key not detected” alerts within weeks of taking delivery.
Lucid has now shipped at least eight software and firmware releases aimed at the problem, the most recent reaching owners as version 02.35.13 this month, as EV recently reported.
Company executives have publicly called the fault embarrassing.
One owner wrote on Reddit in April that his five-day-old Gravity had left him, his wife at 35 weeks pregnant and their toddler stranded when the vehicle stopped sensing the fob and could not be shifted into drive, as EV reported.
At the time, he said the car had failed on every day of ownership, including the day of delivery.
Complaints have extended beyond the fob to navigation, climate control, false safety alerts and frozen screens.
Then-Interim chief executive Marc Winterhoff emailed Gravity customers in December apologising for the company’s failure to meet its own standards on software quality, and later confirmed that a number of software staff had been dismissed.
A UX 3.6 update in June introduced intermittent hands-free driving failures, requiring a further patch.
Separately, a recall covering roughly 3,900 Gravity SUVs addressed a rearview camera that failed to display when the vehicle was shifted into reverse, a violation of federal safety standard 111.
The Execs who owned it have gone
Both senior figures responsible for the product and software drawing those complaints have left within about eight months.
Eric Bach, Senior VP and Chief Engineer, was ousted last November after roughly a decade, in a removal EV first reported.
He subsequently sued the company for wrongful termination, discrimination and retaliation.
Emad Dlala, one of the two longest-serving executives, took over product and software in early November in Bach’s place.
Dlala then left in June after nearly 11 years, the first major departure under new chief executive Silvio Napoli, as EVreported.
About sixteen C-level executives, senior vice-presidents or vice-presidents have left since October 2023 by EV‘s count.
Hayes therefore inherits the ownership experience from two predecessors who are no longer at the company.
Who he is
Lucid announced the appointment on July 2, effective immediately, as part of a leadership overhaul that halved the number of executives reporting to Napoli. His LinkedIn profile dates the start to June.
The EV maker lists his remit as sales, service, ownership experience and marketing, alongside regional profit-and-loss responsibility for the United States, the Middle East and Europe.
He ran United States sales and regional operations at Nissan until 2019, then spent four years at Stellantis covering India and Asia Pacific from Tokyo, and most recently oversaw 59 dealerships for Asbury Automotive Group.
Commercial backdrop
The company cut about 18.0% of its US workforce on June 22 after a 12.0% reduction in February, as EV exclusively reported.
Lucid announced hours later that it was eliminating the second shift at its Arizona plant.
The management has promised to give a business update on August 4, the first earnings conference call with Silvio Napoli as CEO and the last one of Taoufiq Boussaid as CFO.
